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Saturday, November 1, 2008

Writing from Chicago on Sen. Barack Obama’s social network, MyBo, Amy Hamblin reports that supporters have posted a whopping 200,000 events, with volunteers steadily “blowing past one milestone after another.” The pace of event organization has dramatically accelerated, Hamblin noted, since the campaign only passed the 150,000th event-mark about three weeks ago.

“People are stepping up every day and taking leadership in this campaign, hosting phonebanks and canvasses,” Hamblin wrote in a blog post, reporting that supporters also launched more than “27,000 MyBO groups.”

Many observers focus on the Obama campaign’s candidate rallies and large crowds, but the parallel grassroots events are a critical part of the ground game, especially in states that the candidate rarely visits.

It hit me finally, when I read this, that I got involved in politics because one day, years from now, I wanted to see happen what has really just happened. Not so much a Democrat in the White House (which is a nice bonus, of course) but hundreds of thousands of citizens engaged in the system of election, representation and leadership of our country.